


Where the Sewage of Youth Drowned the Spark of My Teens

by KCcandy



Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Angst, Character Death In Dream, Dead Akamatsu Kaede, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Mild Gore, Momota Kaito - mentioned - Freeform, Nightmares, Oma Kokichi - mentioned - Freeform, POV Saihara Shuichi, Sad Ending, Saihara Shuichi-centric, Shirogane Tsumugi - mentioned - Freeform, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:40:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28134819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KCcandy/pseuds/KCcandy
Summary: In which Shuichi encounters someone who he thought was an old friend.
Relationships: Akamatsu Kaede & Saihara Shuichi
Kudos: 11





	Where the Sewage of Youth Drowned the Spark of My Teens

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE READ !!!
> 
> Before you get any further, here’s a trigger warning for descriptions of gore, death, and suicidal thoughts. The gore shouldn’t be worse than anything seen in-game, though it is different. And a spoiler warning for the entire game. That’s all !

Despite his best effort to keep silent, the floor creaked beneath Shuichi’s feet. He shuddered as the chattering of piano keys stopped, only just realizing how cold he was. He was ready to be scolded for his intrusion, but the girl didn’t even turn around her stool. That’s right, he thought, she would never be mad. She was the nicest person Shuichi had ever met, and her brilliant smile radiated warmth and comfort. Yes, he remembered. He wanted nothing more than to see her smile. Even though he had been the one to interrupt her, she would never be bothered by Shuichi. She hadn’t spoken after halting her playing, however, so Shuichi knew it was up to him to start a conversation.

“How can you play in the dark?” he blurted out, instantly regretting asking such a stupid question, “Can you see? The keys, I mean...” She just giggled in response. Shuichi should have felt comforted by the sound, like he always did when she snickered and softly smiled, but her laugh rang out hollow and empty. Not her laugh, he thought, a laugh. She could never make such a heartless sound. Something really wasn’t right. The urge to turn and run sparked up in his chest, though there was no where for him to run to. Everything around them was black, faded nothingness, just the two of them and her piano.

“Shuichi...” she sang, her voice just above a whisper. The fog echoed the sound as she continued to mutter his name, as if it were mocking him for his stupidity. For thinking he deserved the time of day. Not day, obviously, as everything around them was pitch black, but it couldn’t have been night either. His nights were always lonely, and right now he almost wished for that emptiness instead. This was making him far too cold. “Shuichi... Shuichi...”

“I- I’m sorry, okay?” he sputtered, perhaps a bit louder than intended. She still wouldn’t turn around, leaving him unable to deduce the emotions on her face. She hadn’t given the detective anything to go on from her voice alone. “I’m sorry I let so many people go, and I’m especially sorry I let you-“

“Sorry doesn’t cut it.” She hissed, making Shuichi cringe and grab at the fabric on his chest. He grew colder still, and could almost see the blood in his hand freeze and stop flowing. “We’re all sorry, everyone’s sorry.” She began to slowly stand. The fear of her turning around and meeting his eyes outweighed Shuichi’s fear of speaking up, so he quickly called out to her.

“Wait! I’d...” he trailed off for a second before regaining his composure, “I’d like to hear you play some more, if you don’t mind. Just a little longer...” If she played a little longer maybe he’d have just enough time to figure out what to say and do. There wasn’t really a known code for these kinds of encounters.

To his dismay, his words had the opposite effect. The girl growled and strongly kicked the stool behind her, sending it flying towards Shuichi. He flinched, but the seat just missed him and landed right in front of his feet instead. She began to laugh again, but this time he could taste her malice from the sound alone, like cold iron and shattered glass. That wasn’t her beautiful laugh, the was the cackle of a monster, and it felt as if an icicle had pierced through his brain. She began to double over, laughing so hard Shuichi thought she’d collapse. The sound echoed off the non-existent walls and into the fog, making Shuichi increasingly nauseous. He was cold, he was so cold. Everything made him sick. The rotting wood of the piano, the thick smoke that filled his lungs and flooded the sky, the air around him that was somehow empty of joy and overflowing with twisted laughter all at once. Shuichi began to consider ripping out one of the keys from the piano in order to give himself a lobotomy, anything to make it stop. He thought he couldn’t take another second of the sound before she suddenly silenced herself.

“Everyone’s sorry...” she repeated, and the detective truly believed he could hear the venom dripping from her words splatter onto the floor, “but no one’s forgiven you.” Shuichi gasped as her head swung back to face him, moving without her body. He heard the sickening crack as it twisted off and watched the blood spill down her sweater vest. Vibrant purple eyes greyed and glazed over, tumbling from their sockets on a head balanced on a broken neck. The scarlet stained her once bright blonde hair, now faded and dead and falling, falling from her scalp. She grinned at him one last time, before her teeth slipped past her mouth and clattered onto the floor. Shuichi tried to shut it out but his eyes refused to close for even a second as he thought about the floor, covered in poison and blood and eyes and hair and teeth and so many lives that he could have saved if he had only been a better detective. He pictured the scar left by rope burn around a dead girl’s throat, a girl who had only wanted to save the world. A girl who was only human. She wasn’t human anymore, and she cackled at the detective in front of her, continuing to spew out reasons he should have died in her place. Shuichi’s mind flashed through every pain and every death he witnessed, but at that point he had breathed in too much of the fog around him and was far too cold to scream.

—

Shuichi’s head shot up instantly as he gasped for breath. All of his blankets had fallen to a jumbled mess on the floor, likely caused by his twisting and turning throughout the night. The fan above left him very, very cold, but he couldn’t do anything about it as he was frozen in place, thinking about the giggles of a little dead girl who just wanted him to do better.

Why couldn’t he have done better?

After some time had past, Shuichi couldn’t be bothered to think in terms of time anymore, he stumbled off the bed and over to his desk. He reached in the top left drawer and pulled out a metal hair clip shaped like a music note. The metal was cold, like a shot-put ball. It was cold like the spikes behind a giant piano or the water filled with deadly fish or the vine surrounded by metal razors or... Shuichi couldn’t bear to think of any more. He slipped the hair clip back into its drawer and sighed. The detective turned around and fixed his blankets. There was no point in going back to sleep, even if the blonde had had her fun. When one of them was done, someone else always took their place, whether that be a man riddled with a deadly disease that never existed, a boy who only remembered the last, hateful words of “you’re alone” from the person he trusted most, or even a girl who just wanted her project to go right, dammit Shuichi! 

He couldn’t blame them though. Their deaths were all his fault, and the ghosts never let him forget it. How cold of them.


End file.
